Wednesday, October 14, 2009

To be completely honest with you guys, I was pretty nervous about doing an entire guest week. Everyone seemed pretty excited about it, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to live up to the hype. In my mind, the worst thing that could possibly happen was that Randall would put out a week of mediocre strips-- not hit it out of the park excellent, but not blatantly terrible, either. Well, it looks like I don't have to worry about that today, because this strip is freaking RIPE with mockery potential.

The only positive thing about this comic is the fact that the pre-coital discussion we're witnessing is happening in the dark (though a 631 redux would have made my job that much easier.) Don't get me wrong, I like sex and pornography and naked people as much as the next sex-deprived nerd, and I'm sure the #xkcd-sucks regulars will attest to the fact that I have a pretty... erm, diverse image collection. But, seeing stick figures getting it on does mildly creep me out. Much like stumbling upon Care Bears Rule 34 hentai makes the average person squirm as they giggle, it's the combining of something typically innocent with something plainly adult that raises my hackles. There's also the fact that the guy stick in these strips tend to be interpreted as Randall's avatar, and I'd like to think only the most desperate of "gerds" want to see him getting frisky.

But I digress. If we had a bingo card full of xkcd archetypes, I think someone would be winning money today. You could ink off the following: sexkcd, unrealistic dialogue, reference for the sake of it, misunderstanding->HIJINKS ENSUE... if only Randall had managed to work in a reference to Numa Numa or something, we'd have the webcomic equivalent of a straight flush.

While rehashing popular themes does tend to make a strip predictable, it doesn't necessarily guarantee it to be terrible. However, in instances like today's strip, I'm compelled to believe Randall has some sort of Wheel of Fortune style spinner in his living room that he's been using to select random geeky things to base a comic on, then spends the rest of his time building the strip's events around it. Even viewing this as a typical "wild and crazy hijinks" style comic, the premise is still totally absurd. He wore a wrist strap to bed and a condom to install RAM? Essentially all Randall's done is swap each scenario's prophylactics. There's nothing clever about that, and aside from middle school "hehe, they're having SEX!" titillation, there's nothing funny about it, either. Setting up your protagonist to act like a moron for the sake of working anti-static bracelets into a strip does not comedy make.

If Randall really had his heart set on addressing the ESD strap as some sort of invincibility bracelet, there are a dozen better ways to do it than four black panels and stilted dialogue. Show someone wearing it while failing at a bunch of different things; for example, flubbing his presentation at a work meeting, smashing his face on the ground while skateboarding, getting slapped while talking to a girl at a bar, and so on. Or, if he were really hell-bent on incorporating sex somehow, he could have worked in a pun about how both wristbands and condoms mitigate the consequences of sudden, unwanted discharges, as one forum member quipped. Instead, the only thing this strip serves as is a vehicle for readers to pat themselves on the back for having used, or at least knowing about, anti-static bracelets. Don't believe me? Swap them out with anything else that boy-stick could have mistaken for "protection"-- shin guards, saran wrap, insect repellent, whatever. Doesn't the whole strip seem preposterous, and frankly, sort of pathetic? Well, as Mr. Munroe himself would say, Q.E.D., bitches.

*Thanks to Carl for the awesome title suggestion!

[late update from Carl: Guys, Kevin just e-mailed me this bash.org quote - with more than 1300 upvotes - that's totally the exact same thing do with it what you will.]

67 comments:

So what the hell DID he get fired from geek squad for? Did he wear the condom like a glove and change the RAM or something? Did he tear out the middle so that the sides work as an improvised bracelet? And how can she "see" if it's pitch dark?

"Swap them out with anything else that boy-stick could have mistaken for "protection"-- shin guards, saran wrap, insect repellent, whatever. Doesn't the whole strip seem preposterous, and frankly, sort of pathetic? Well, as Mr. Munroe himself would say, Q.E.D., bitches."

It took me a *long* time and a few re-reads to actually understand what was going on and who was saying what. And even when I came to the xkcdsucks entry on it, I realized that I hadn't understood it right.

Add "lazy art" and "wall of text" to the bingo card. And possibly "unnecessary post-punchline dialogue" as well, depending on which part you consider to be the punchline (I think the fourth panel would be much better with the first speech bubble by itself, and the Geek Squad line as the alt-text.)

@Femalethoth: I've already mentioned that Comic JK's entire creative being has its lips firmly wrapped around Randall's member. I'm pretty sure that if xkcd linked to his abortion he calls a webcomic

@Comic JK: seriously dude, your stuff sucks for -stick figure art-, a least spring for Gimp or a pirated photoshop. Take the time to draw poses human beings would actually be in, spend longer than three minutes on a single comic since you're certainly not spending any time on the writing, do something! Your comic actually made me VOMIT IN AGONY

If there is a succinct way to phrase it, the bingo board needs a category of "let the audience imagine the wacky hijinks that Randall doesn't bother to come up with". Which this comic tries to have, except that there is clearly nothing wacky to imagine.

This comic would work slightly better, though still terrible, if the female (or bottom male, it's all cool) was the one wearing the strap. You'd have to lose the mention of the condom, and instead use the Pill, but I think that would be an improvement.

Ken, you've got a good point with the Pill->strap thing. They do make birth control patches, so the idea of a birth control wristband isn't completely out there.

There is actually NuvaRing, which is just a plastic ring impregnated with hormones that hangs out up by the cervix. I've seen them and they look a lot like those plastic jelly bracelets that were trendy back when Avril Lavigne was popular. But I'm glad Randall didn't go THAT route.

That's the primary reason I was so confused at the comic in regards to who's saying what (other than the position switch in the middle). I remember reading about a wristband (or some other strap-on going somewhere) as an alternative method to the pill. I couldn't understand what was going on because the male was actually the one with the wristband, something that makes no sense.

Actually, I might be wrong on this, but I don't think the comic treats the characters' positions as "left and right", but instead as "top and bottom", and the left/right thing only refers to who speaks first. It baffles me that Randall, who has been fully dedicated to drawing comics for YEARS, can fuck up such a basic element of comics.

Not that I think the comic was great- the position swap kept me confused for a whole 5 minutes- but I got the impression it was the girl who got kicked out of geek squad for wearing a static bracelet which the geeks she worked with (and for) would have interpreted as using a contraceptive at the workplace...while having sex with noone... which is actually vaguely funny, if not for the fact that it took me 5 minutes to think of that...

Chit: Except for the fact that Randall was clearly not thinking of this, your interpretation makes SO MUCH MORE SENSE.

The last lines as spoken by him make no sense at all. People interpreted this as meaning that he was wearing a condom while changing RAM, because everyone figured "hey, it's the punchline, so there's GOT to be something funny, right? ...right...?" and invented their own punchline, but ther's certainly no evidence of THAT anywhere.

But if it were the GIRL saying "Wait... so what I was changing RAM the other day [and was wearing a wrist band] you thought... what...?" and the guy was like, "yeah! I THOUGHT that was weird" and then... well we're in a funnier place already. At that point maybe the geeksquad could have been shoe-horned in somehow.

Hey guys, do you know you suck as much as xkcd? Let me understand the stripe for you.Randall did not wear a condom but his girlfriend's contraceptive wristband. He was kicked out after destroying a few $ks worth of RAM chips and processors.Now his GF is wearing his anti-static band.The punchline is that it is too late(no, actually there is no punchline)

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

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